Devoted to tips and other info on how to use your Mac to read and write languages other than English

Friday, October 26, 2007

Fixing Leopard's Latvian Keyboard

In the Apple forums some users have reported that Leopard's Latvian keyboard layout has a non-functioning ' deadkey for making the special characters which that language requires. It was OK in Tiger. For a replacement, try downloading and installing LatvianT.keylayout from my iDisk.

I really loved the way it didn't work in 10.5.1 :) And I really would want it back - I don't like the modifier to be assigned to a ' as it results in a million of "sheš", "itš" and "heš" for me (instead of "she's", "it's" and "he's". The Option key has always worked as a modifier (also when ' didn't) though. Is there any way to fix it without making/installing an additional keyboard layout?

I too find it inconvenient that there are actually two available key modifiers in Mac OS X 10.5.5 in the standard Latvian layout. If I want to type Latvian characters, I can easily use Alt- combination. The ' key just makes it troublesome, as you can't really use the same layout for typing both in English and Latvian. In Latvia we also use Russian at times, so having 3 different keyboard layouts is pretty much inconvenient. Therefore, I wish the Latvian keyboard layout for Mac OS X that IGNORES the ' key existed....

Hi: I am new to Mac. I have a Leopard and I need some step by step help in how to install a latvian keyboard -- it appears that you have a great solution to this problem with the download you have posted. If you can give me quick steps on how to do this, it would be immensely appreciated.

Mara -- First just go to system/prefs/international/input menu and check the box for Latvian, plus the box for Show Input Menu in Finder. Then select Latvian in the "flag" menu at the top right of the finder. Then type. No need to come back unless that does not work for you. In that case, email me (tom at bluesky dot org) with info on your OS .